Despite the staunchest, most venerable defenses, we can never completely subdue death anxiety: it is always there, lurking in some hidden ravine of the mind.
IRVIN D. YALOMThe pain is there; when you close one door on it, it knocks to come in somewhere else.
More Irvin D. Yalom Quotes
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Absolute power, as we have always known, corrupts absolutely; it corrupts because it does not do the trick for the individual.
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There are borderlines and there are borderlines. Labels do violence to people. You can’t treat the label; you have to treat the person behind the label. (17)
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Not to take possession of your life plan is to let your existence be an accident.
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Look out the other’s window. Try to see the world as your patient sees it.
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I dream of a love that is more than two people craving to possess one another.
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If you want to choose the pleasure of growth, prepare yourself for some pain.
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One doesn’t do existential therapy as a freestanding separate theory; rather it informs your approach to such issues as death, which many therapists tend to shy away from.
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When that person dies, the whole cluster dies,too, vanishes from the living memory. I wonder who that person will be for me. Whose death will make me truly dead?
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Never take away anything if you have nothing better to offer
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The more you fail to experience your life fully, the more you will fear death.
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Death cures psychoneurosis. In a sense all these neurotic concerns–fear of rejection, interpersonal concerns–seem to melt away, and people get another perspective on their lives. The important things are really important, and the trivia of life is trivialized.
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The path to decision may be hard because it leads into the territory of both finiteness and groundlessness—domains soaked in anxiety.
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Rather, love is a way of being, a “giving to,” not a ‘falling for”; a mode of relating at large, not an act limited to a single person.
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Self-awareness is a supreme gift, a treasure as precious as life.
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Your greatest instrument is you, yourself, and the work of self-understanding is endless. I’m still learning.
IRVIN D. YALOM